A new year

Hey all,

So some time has lapsed since my last post. Some how or another, I find an excuse not to get to the blog. Usually that excuse is school. And to be sure, there is always something to study. But if I add up the minutes and hours spent playing on facebook or reading a blog, I can't justify not dedicating a little time at least to this blog.

And so with that, let me fill in the details about events that have taken place since my last post.

First and most importantly, I got engaged! Yes. The most beautiful and loving woman in the world accepted in my proposal. It happened over Thanksgiving break. I couldn't be happier. Or luckier.

So I've been on a cloud since then. When I went back home for Christmas, she and I planned the wedding too. We're looking to get married this summer. The timing is just right for a lot of reasons, so no need to wait longer than we have to. I'll have more details on the wedding in future posts.

In other news, I successfully completed the first half of the preclinical portion of medical school. It's amazing how much I learned (and didn't learn) in 5 months. I can't believe how quickly the time has passed. It feels like yesterday that we had all arrived for the pre-orientation camp out at Jordan Lake. Now we're already into the second half of the year.

Right now I'm in the middle of an intensive 1-month long neuroscience course. In the last 15 days, I've had so much neuroscience crammed into my head it's unbelievable. I love it though. It's completely new to me and I find it all very fascinating and relevant. The relevance actually is what makes slogging through 100 pages or more a night worthwhile and bearable. Did you know that a lesion to the vagus nerve can be identified by the fact that your uvula hangs to the side of the lesion? Those kinds of little nuggets are the kinds of clues you need to look for when you're doing medicine, particularly neurological stuff. I love that and so I'm just soaking it all up. Of course, I always feel completely inadequate with the amount of knowledge I have stored in my mind, but I know everyone else feels like that too. If we didn't, we wouldn't be students then, would we? And if you're not feeling like that, you're either ignorant of how much more information there is to know or you're not interested in learning anymore, or you're just a machine.

Apart from school and planning a wedding, I'm trying to stay engaged in things I like to do. I'm trying to read leisurely, a little bit each week. I picked up a set of golf clubs, so I can go rekindle my former love of golf. We'll see how long that lasts. When it starts to warm up, I'd like to go fishing. And if I can muster the time and resources, I'd love to start playing an instrument. In particular, classical guitar.

There is never enough time. But that's partly because I need to become more efficient. Every minute counts.

And speaking of, I think I've taken up too many now on this post. Until next time.